Lenovo - I'm Ready To Scream!

[ArtShapiro]

I'm writing this in hopes of cheering up the readers, who can now always say: "Wow - there's some poor soul having more problems than I!"

This all started in early May when I ran over my beloved T42 under weird circumstances. Originally I thought I'd just taken out the backlight (the machine still worked fine with an external monitor!) but then discovered the LCD panel was actually ruined, and there was also a small tear in the lid. The latter was of no real consequence aside from aesthetics, but it seemed to be reasonable to just purchase a new lid & SXGA+ panel as a unit. So I got one on eBay. Of course, a few hours later, James posted exactly the same combo, better than new, at less money... but I digress.

So I took apart the T42, and a few days later the lid assembly arrived. Well packaged and protected - yet one of the hinges had fractured in shipment! Maybe I should have dealt with the seller at that point, but I did want the T42 back together quickly.

So that meant disassembling both lids (more difficult than the body of the thinkpad), and swapping the hinges.

Upon partially reassembling, I found the video to be flaky - it initially wouldn't work, but would pop in after a few minutes. Then it would pop in and out. I spent a few weeks off and on trying to debug the situation and it really resisted me.

So I found a nice T61 on the Outlet - one of the few SXGA+ machines these days - and bit the bullet last week and ordered it. Other than a 5400 RPM disk, it had a nice configuration and seemed like a good machine.

When I didn't get a confirming email in a couple days, and remembering that I'd never gotten one, period, on my last Thinkpad order, I gave 'em a ring. Turned out they didn't have my email address (?!) and that the credit card had bounced because they - just like the last time - had the wrong expiration data in their system. So we corrected it. My city name was misspelled, but nobody could correct that because "'we only deal by zip code and the city name is in the database; it can't be changed." At this point I started eagerly waiting for my T61.

The shipment of the T61 was to be tomorrow.

Today, I get an email that the order was canceled!

In the intervening days, I found the problem on the T42 - a bad ribbon cable to the screen - and it's now stable, I think. But it is in such a massive state of disassembly I'm not sure I'll ever get it back together.

Of course, I called 'em up immediately, and all the tech representative (in Bangalore, I think) could do is say that the credit card had been rejected for some reason he couldn't tell from his screens. I'm willing to bet it's the misspelled city name. He referred me to sales, and gave me the name and extension of my alleged sales representative.

Needless to say, I reached that guy's voice mail.

So I'm sitting here wondering if I have any prayer of getting that particular T61, or whether I should just admit that dealing with Lenovo has been a persistent headache - you should have seen the warranty registration screwup with the last one - and that I should run away screaming. In my incredible naivety, it seems they might have tried to contact me first.

I think I'm going to be working on reassembling that T42 tonight!

Art

[mattbiernat]

nothing new to me, lenovo has given me one of the worst customer service i have ever had.... i found them personally to be incompetent and rude. other people had better luck, i think there is a phone number somewhere in here floating around where the sales reps are actually polite and know what they are doing.

[RealBlackStuff]

Go to http://forum.lenovo.com/lnv/ and contact Mark Hopkins (Mark_Lenovo).
He has proven to more than helpful on a number of occasions.

[ArtShapiro]

It was Mark who helped me with the last purchase's (X61) warranty issues. A lot will depend on how well the T42 goes back together; perhaps I won't need the T61 in the end. I'm starting to get intrigued by the Toughbooks, anyway.

I'll disagree with Matt about Lenovo customer service, even if the end result isn't always satisfactory. They've always seemed eager to help and often, if another department had to be involved, would stay on the line during the transfer and make sure things were going correctly before signing off. I never have had the impression that I was a bother.

Needless to say, I got no call from the sales rep today.

Art